Elin Hilderbrand - Winter Street

“Dinner at five,” Ava says. “Mom and I are cooking a standing rib roast.”

“I can’t believe your mom is there,” Nathaniel says. “It probably seems normal to you because she’s your mom, but to me it just seems really… I don’t know… cool.”

Ava crosses her eyes. She doesn’t want to hear it.

“I’ll talk to you later,” she says.

“Oh, okay,” Nathaniel says.

She pauses, waiting for him to say it first, but he never says it first.

“I love you,” she says.

“Yep. Love you, too,” he says, and they hang up.

Phone call: unsatisfactory, Ava thinks. If she lets herself dwell on what happened late last night in the “den,” then it’s really unsatisfactory. But her pain and angst are ameliorated by the anticipation of Nathaniel’s present.

Ava marches out to the main room. Kevin and Isabelle are lounging on the sofa; Isabelle’s eyes are closed. Kevin is stroking her hair.

“Is she asleep?” Ava whispers.

Kevin nods.

Crap. Ava sits on the ottoman, waiting for Isabelle to wake up so Ava can ask her where the present from Nathaniel is. There is nothing wrapped left under the tree except the gifts for Jennifer and Patty’s kids. Ava tries not to feel peeved that Isabelle never told her such a present existed; possibly Nathaniel asked Isabelle to keep it a secret.

What would a desirable present from Nathaniel be? Since he’s not here to give it himself, Ava knows it’s not a diamond ring. Any other jewelry would be good, especially earrings made by Jessica Hicks, who is Ava’s favorite. Something Nathaniel made himself would be wonderful-a finely crafted wooden box with secret drawers where he might, someday soon, hide her diamond ring. Or a custom frame that holds a picture of the two of them-maybe the photo they took on her birthday that night at the Wauwinet. Ava has never looked happier in her life, she doesn’t think, than on that night. Also acceptable would be concert tickets for a date in the spring or summer, something they could look forward to together; double points if it is Yo-Yo Ma or Charlotte Church or Beyoncé, all of whom are favorites of Ava’s.

Isabelle’s eyelids flutter open, and Ava pounces like a starving animal.

“Isabelle,” she says. “Did Nathaniel drop off a present for me? Do you know where it is?”

Isabelle’s eyes are unfocused. She blinks, rubs a hand across her lower abdomen, and Kevin tightens his grip. The sight of them together like this is still hard to process. For the past six months, Isabelle has been working at the inn like a French Cinderella. Ava has seen her cleaning rooms at seven in the morning and preparing for breakfast at nine at night. Ava did once happen across Kevin and Isabelle eating bowls of chocolate ice cream together in the kitchen in the middle of the afternoon, before Kevin left for his shift at the Bar, but Ava thought nothing of it.

Isabelle’s voice is scratchy. “Yes,” she says, and she smiles. “It is in the front closet. Nathaniel say surprise you.”

The front closet! Ava thinks. She hops to her feet.

The front closet is used only for guests of the inn. It holds five matching umbrellas from the Nantucket Golf Club, a black coat someone must have left last night (or, possibly, the year before-Ava never opens the front closet, and she doubts anyone else does either), and Ava’s present, wrapped in shiny red paper!

It’s bigger than a bread box. Ava’s heart thuds with worry; she remembers that good things come in small packages. She picks it up, a rectangular package, about two feet long and a foot wide. She shakes it; there is movement. She heads through the main room, toward the back of the house.

“Carols, Ava, please!” Kelley says. “We’re all ready.”

“In a minute,” she says.

In the box from Nathaniel is a pair of dark-green Hunter rain boots with matching fleece socks. Ava holds a boot in her hand. Rubber rain boots. This is her Christmas gift.

“Ava!” her father calls.

Ava throws one boot across the room, then goes out to play the carols.

One thirty, eastern standard time, ten thirty on the West Coast. Jen and the kids will be finished opening presents but not yet headed to the Park Tavern. He should call, despite his shame. She must be thinking he isn’t at all the man she married.

Just then, a call comes in from the disposable cell phone of Bucky Larimer. Patrick wants to throw his phone into the fire, but instead he stands, opens the front door, and steps out into the cold day to take the call.

“What?” he says.

“Man, thank God you finally answered,” Bucky says.

“What,” Patrick says, “do you want?” There is a way in which he can see this whole thing as Bucky’s fault; certainly the plan was created at Bucky’s instigation: he was the one who pulled Patrick aside and said he had a handle on a sure thing and asked if there was any way Patrick could help him capitalize on it. Patrick is guilty of being too weak to resist-and then, of course, of taking the poor decision to the $25-million level.

Bucky says, “I confessed.”

“What?” Patrick says.

“I turned myself in.”

“And you turned me in,” Patrick says.

“Well,” Bucky says, “by default, yes.”

“What exactly did you say?” Patrick asks.

“I told them what happened,” Bucky says.

“Who is ‘they?’ ” Patrick asks.

“The feds.”

“You named me.”

“Man, I had no choice.”

“What exactly did you say?”

“That I told you about MDP, told you it was headed for FDA approval, and you asked me if I wanted to invest some money on my behalf in exchange for the information.”

“Whoa!” Patrick says. “Wait a minute! That is NOT how it happened.”

“What isn’t?”

“ You asked me if I would invest for you in exchange for the info.”

“No,” Bucky says. “It was the other way around.”

“It was NOT!” Patrick shouts, and his voice is so loud that every house on Winter Street seems to shimmy on its foundation.

“Anyway,” Bucky says, “I just wanted to let you know what was up.”

“What’s up, ” Patrick says, “is that I am headed to jail because of you! And I have a wife! And three kids!”

“I know, man,” Bucky says. But Bucky doesn’t know. Bucky doesn’t have so much as a steady girlfriend. At the reunion, he was hitting on the hot women from their graduating class, all of whom were married. That alone proves the man has no scruples.

“Answer me this,” Patrick says. He has gone outside without a coat, and he’s freezing.

“What?”

“Are you going to jail? Or are they taking it easy on you because you sold me out?”

“Well,” Bucky says.

That’s all Patrick needs to hear. He hangs up the phone.

He screams an expletive at the quiet Nantucket street. Luckily, he thinks, Winter Street is only three houses long, and the other owners are summer people.

He calls Jen. What does he have to lose now? His life is over. He will lose his job and go to jail, and he will be lucky if he goes to jail for insider trading and not first-degree murder, because he seriously wants to KILL Bucky Larimer.

Please , he thinks. Please, Jennifer, answer the phone.

He gets her voice mail almost immediately. He wants to throw his phone down the street, but instead he leaves a message.

“Baby, it’s me.” He swallows. “I’m in big trouble, bigger than maybe we thought on Tuesday. I’m on Nantucket, at the inn; I’m drowning here without you. Call me, please. I need to hear your voice. I need to talk to the boys.” He swallows. “I’ve been having some pretty dark thoughts… anyway, please call me.”